On Tuesday, BP and government officials claim that BP’s new cap system has collected over 51,000 barrels of oil since Friday. Tony Hayward has said he is hopeful the new measures would soon contain a major portion of the oil gushing out of the ruptured well, but scientist Ira Leifer says the oil may be gushing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day, a number that BP once called its worst-case scenario. Leifer is a researcher in...

The investigative news organization ProPublica is reporting a series of internal BP investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the oil company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways. The reports described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems, and cut short or...

Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat visits the town of Phoenix, Louisiana on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish, an area that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She speaks to Reverend Tyronne Edwards, a pastor and longtime community activist who spearheaded efforts to rebuild the largely African American fishing community after Katrina. In the aftermath of the BP oil spill disaster, Rev. Edwards is at the forefront of getting...

The Justice Department has confirmed it’s opened a criminal and civil investigation into the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast, now believed to be the worst environmental disaster in US history. For residents of southern Louisiana, the spill is impacting the ecology, the economy and entire ways of life. Over the past several days, Democracy Now! traveled across the bayous and towns of coastal Louisiana meeting the people on the front lines...

The oil giant BP has admitted it proceeded with work on the underwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico shortly before last month’s explosion despite warning signs of a major problem. Dogged by delays, BP faces a pivotal day today as it attempts a so-called "top kill" maneuver to choke off the gushing oil by pumping heavy drilling mud and cement into the mile-deep well. The procedure risks making the leak worse. A weak spot in...

The BP oil spill is the worst to hit the United States since the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989. The devastation in the Gulf Coast has renewed attention on BP’s key role in the botched containment of Exxon Valdez. We speak to Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College who headed the legal team for the state-appointed Alaska Oil Spill Commission that investigated the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. [includes rush transcript]...

From the Gulf of Mexico to the Massey mine of West Virginia, scores of workers have died. We speak to Corporate Crime Reporter editor Russell Mokhiber, who says corporate executives should be held criminally accountable for the disasters under their watch. Mokhber is involved with a group of citizen activists who have just launched a campaign calling on the state of West Virginia to prosecute Massey Energy for manslaughter in connection with...

The British oil company BP has been forced to admit the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is far larger than the company initially said. On Thursday, BP said it’s now capturing 5,000 barrels of oil a day from the leaking pipe — the same amount it had previously said was leaking every day. BP has declined to estimate how much oil is still escaping, but scientists say BP is siphoning just a fraction of the total leak. Independent...

One month after the BP oil spill, we speak to Scott West, a former top investigator at the Environmental Protection Agency who led an investigation of BP following a major oil pipeline leak in Alaska’s North Slope that spilled 250,000 gallons of oil on the Alaskan tundra. Before West finished his investigation, the Bush Justice Department reached a settlement with BP, and the oil company agreed to pay $20 million. At the same time, BP...

Author Peter Maass writes about how oil has resulted in devastation around the world in his new book, Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil. Maass spent eight years traveling the globe to discover the costs of oil production to the planet. Peter Maass is an award-winning investigative journalist and author and a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. He joins us now from Boston. [includes rush transcript]